A photograph entitled 'Old Vennel, off High Street', taken by Thomas Annan in 1868. The photograph shows a vennel (a passageway between two buildings), off the High Street in Glasgow. Washing hangs between the windows of the tenements and dirty children play barefoot in the passageway as a woman watches the photographer capturing the scene.

A photograph entitled 'Old Vennel, off High Street', taken by Thomas Annan in 1868.

The photograph shows a vennel (a passageway between two buildings), off the High Street in Glasgow. Washing hangs between the windows of the tenements and dirty children play barefoot in the passageway as a woman watches the photographer capturing the scene.

In 1868 the City of Glasgow Improvement Trust approached Thomas Annan to take photographs of some of the slum areas of the city prior to demolition. The resulting images are some of the earliest examples of documentary photography.